Cesare Borgia

Encyclopedia of World Biography
COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc.

Cesare Borgia

The Italian leader Cesare Borgia (1475-1507) played an important part in Renaissance history. By intrigue and bravery he captured the Romagna, an area of Italy which remained a papal state until the 19th century.

Cesare Borgia was the first child of Vanozza de' Catanei and Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, then archbishop of Valencia. They later had three other children: Giovanni, Lucrezia, and Goffredo.

The Borgia titles and estates in Spain were to be inherited by Pier Luigi Borgia, Cesare's older half brother, and an ecclesiastical career was chosen for Cesare. Thus upon the untimely death of Pier Luigi, Cesare did not succeed as heir to the Borgia secular fortune and titles, which passed instead to his younger brother Giovanni. In 1492, while still a layman, Cesare received the archbishopric of Valencia from his father, who became Pope Alexander VI that same year. In 1493 Alexander named Cesare cardinal deacon, and in 1494 Cesare was ordained a deacon.

These were exciting times in Italy. In 1494 King Charles VIII of France invaded Italy. His objective was Naples, over which he had a distant hereditary claim. On his march south he encountered little Italian resistance. Only after the Italians organized the military League of Venice, which threatened to cut his overextended supply lines, did Charles withdraw, and by 1497 French troops had evacuated Italy.

Immediately after Charles's withdrawal, papal forces turned upon the great Roman baronial families, especially the Orsini, who had helped Charles because of their opposition to the election of Alexander VI. Cesare's brother Giovanni commanded the papal militia during this period. Saddled with the mundane duties of a cleric, Cesare envied Giovanni's more active military career.

Rise to Power

In June 1497 the body of Giovanni Borgia, its throat cut, was found in the Tiber River. Several parties might have been involved in the mysterious murder, but many historians hold Cesare responsible since the death was of political advantage to him. Cesare now saw the possibility of being dispensed from his clerical duties and of assuming his brother's secular titles, wealth, and position as military leader of the Borgias and the papacy.

Unfortunately, the Spanish king, Ferdinand V (Ferdinand of Aragon), opposed the practice of releasing a cardinal from his office for political purposes. Thus Alexander could not release his son without angering the Spanish, his protectors against the French. However, in November 1497
France and Spain reached a truce in which they agreed to divide Naples. Since France was no longer Spain's enemy, Alexander could now approach the French king for help in seeking Cesare's release from the cardinalate. Louis XII, who had become king in April 1498 on the death of Charles, agreed to support Cesare's release in return for papal approval of the dissolution of his marriage. Alexander granted this request and thus became allied with France. In August 1498 he released Cesare from his clerical offices.

In February 1499 Louis gave Cesare command of a company of French cavalry. In March Cesare married Charlotte d'Albret, and in May he received from Louis the French duchy of Valentinois and the county of Diois. Having agreed to the Franco-Spanish partition of Naples, Louis planned an invasion of southern Italy. Milan lay on the supply route between France and Naples and was of strategic importance. In September 1499 Cesare commanded the French force that captured Milan and defeated its ruler, Lodovico Sforza.

In return for his services, Louis XII placed this French force at his disposal, and Cesare used it in his first attempt to capture the Romagna for Alexander. Like all popes, Alexander claimed dominion over the Romagna on the basis of the Donation of Pepin (756), which included the Romagna. Cesare's campaign went well. Before it was completed, however, Louis ordered the French force back to defend Milan from a counterattack by Lodovico Sforza, and Cesare's invasion of the Romagna ended in January 1500.

Success of Romagna Campaign

By 1500 Cesare had received all he desired: a reputation as a military leader, secular estates, and a wife. But the Borgias had paid a high price for Cesare's ambitions; by allying themselves with France they had lost the friendship and protection of the Spanish king. Since Cesare had acquired estates and a wife in France, he was determined to maintain the papal alliance with the French. To that end he ordered the murder of the husband of his sister Lucrezia, the Neapolitan nobleman Alfonso, Duke of Bisceglie. In August 1500, while recuperating from an earlier assassination attempt, Alfonso was strangled in the papal apartments. Alfonso's murder in Borgia-controlled Rome angered the Neapolitans and the Spanish and thus ended the possibility of Alexander's return to the old alliance.

Between October 1500 and August 1501 Cesare seized other territories in the Romagna. Again Louis XII provided him with a French army. During this second campaign Louis and Ferdinand of Aragon signed the Treaty of Granada (November 1500), which formalized their agreement to partition Naples. When the Franco-Spanish operation against Naples was launched, Cesare assisted his French ally, and on Aug. 1, 1501, Naples capitulated.

In June 1502 Cesare began his third and final campaign in the Romagna, and by December 1502 he had captured the entire area for the Pope. Most of the Romagna welcomed the Borgia rule, for Cesare introduced an efficient, enlightened, and centralized administration to the area. But Cesare's fortunes were soon to change.

Cesare's Downfall

In 1503 two events occurred which caused Cesare's downfall. First, Spanish forces turned upon the French in May and drove them out of southern Italy. In control of the Romagna and of papal financial support, Cesare accepted the French defeat calmly. However, the second event, the death of Alexander VI on August 18, ultimately proved disastrous to Cesare.

Because of Cesare's influence, Cardinal Piccolomini, a strong supporter of the Borgias, was elected Pope Pius III in September. He died, however, in October. When the cardinals met again in October to choose a successor, Cesare was tricked by Cardinal Della Rovere's promise of money and of continued papal backing for Borgia policies in the Romagna. He supported Della Rovere, who thus became Pope Julius II. Julius then disregarded his promises and decided to assume control of the Romagna himself. In December he ordered the arrest of Cesare, who won his freedom only by relinquishing key cities in the Romagna to Julius.

In April 1504 Cesare journeyed to Naples seeking financial assistance from friends and relatives. But both Julius and Ferdinand of Aragon feared the presence of a Borgia army, and in May their agents arrested Cesare. In August he was transported to Spain, where he was imprisoned until his escape in 1506. He made his way to Navarre, the kingdom of his brother-in-law Jean d'Albret. After Louis XII had refused to restore Cesare's French estates, Cesare joined d'Albret in fighting Louis's attempt to gain control of Navarre through support of insurrectionist feudal families.

On March 12, 1507, Cesare Borgia died in battle in Navarre. He had lived the life of a Renaissance knight and had captured the Romagna, richest of the papal states. His career was marked by political intrigue, but also by courage.

Further Reading

Most recent works on Cesare Borgia are not in English. Nevertheless, older works in English are still useful. The most thorough, though stylistically difficult, are R. Sabatini, The Life of Cesare Borgia of France (trans. 1912), and William Harrison Woodward, Cesare Borgia: A Biography (1913). More readable is Carlo Beuf, Cesare Borgia: The Machiavellian Prince (1942). For background information see John Addington Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, vol. 1: The Age of Despots (1875; 2d ed. 1880).

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Borgia, Cesare (1475–1507)

The Renaissance
COPYRIGHT 2008 Greenhaven

Borgia, Cesare (1475–1507)

Scion of the powerful Borgia family, Cesare Borgia was born in Rome to Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia and the cardinal's obscure mistress Vannozza dei Cattani. Cesare's uncle Alonso was elected as Pope Calixtus III in 1455. His father Rodrigo became Pope Alexander VI in 1492. Soon afterward Cesare was made the archbishop of Valencia, and in the following year, at the age of eighteen, became a cardinal. As a young man he prepared to follow in his father's footsteps; the pope intended to establish a lasting family dynasty through his eldest son Giovanni, the Duke of Gandia. This gave rise to a violent jealousy on the part of Cesare, who saw greater power and glory in a career outside of the limitations of the church. For this reason, historians believe Cesare had a central role in the assassination of his brother in 1497. This event ended Cesare's career in the church. He became an ambassador for the pope in Naples and his father worked to arrange a useful marriage for him with Carlotta, the daughter of the king of Naples. In 1498 Cesare resigned his office, the first cardinal in history to do so, and became an ambassador for the pope to France, who was requesting a papal annulment of his marriage to Jeanne of France in order to marry Anne of Brittany. Cesare brought the papal bull (decree) annulling the marriage and was rewarded by Louis XII with the title of Duke of Valentinois (Valence).

The pope sent Cesare north to subdue the rebellious cities of northern Italy. Cesare brought an army of Swiss, Gascons, French, and Italians, he marched to the Romagna and established a base at Cesena. He conquered Imola, and Forli. As commander of the armies of the church, he formed the new state of Romagna. In 1500 he defeated Rimini and Pesaro, and in the next year he defeated Faenza, whose leader was sent to Rome as a prisoner and later murdered. Greatly feared throughout northern Italy, Cesare was rising in his father's estimation and arriving at his plan to establish a hereditary monarchy in central and northern Italy. Alexander named him gonfaloniere of the church (a prestigious post) and as the Duke of Romagna in 1501. Still opposed by several northern princes and condottieri (leaders of mercenary soldiers), four of them repented their resistance to him and captured the town of Senigallia for his benefit. Arriving in the city, Cesare lured them to his palace, where on New Year's Eve 1502 he ordered two of them to be strangled. Cesare sought to form an independent base of power to serve his own ambitions, independent from that of the Papacy, and to this end maneuvered, schemed, and bribed among the Italian nobles.

The widespread fear and hatred he inspired eventually proved his downfall, however. Both father and son came down with a fever in 1503; although Cesare recovered, Alexander VI died. The election of his enemy Giuliano della Rovere as Pope Julius II. This pope sought the return of captured cities in Romagna to the papal territories. Cesare was taken prisoner and abandoned by the king of France. The pope demanded the return of territories conquered by Cesare's armies. Cesare fled to Naples. Julius schemed with the rulers of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella, to have Cesare arrested in Naples, then a Spanish possession, by the city's governor Gonzalo de Cordova. In 1506 he escaped from prison in Spain and fled to Navarre, ruled by his brother-in-law John III of Navarre, the brother of his wife Charlotte d'Albret. He died at the siege of Viana in 1507.

Cesare is best known as a model leader, the ideal of the Renaissance prince, in the eyes of Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine historian who believed Cesare's combination of ambition and cunning were best suited to rule in his times. The historian, serving as an ambassador for Florence, spent some time at Borgia's court in 1502–1503 and described his actions and tactics in his work The Prince. Borgia's conquest of Romagna and the murder of his rivals at Senigallia on New Year's Eve 1502 in particular earned Machiavelli's praise.

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Borgia, Cesare

The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.

Copyright The Columbia University Press

Cesare Borgia(chā´zärā bōr´jä), 1476–1507, Italian soldier and politician, younger son of Pope Alexander VI and an outstanding figure of the Italian Renaissance. Throughout his pontificate Alexander VI used his position to aggrandize his son and establish a papal empire in N and central Italy. Archbishop of Valencia and a cardinal by 1493, Cesare resigned the dignity after the death (1498) of his elder brother, the duke of Gandia, in whose murder he was probably involved. He now began his political career as papal legate to France. He struck an alliance with King Louis XII who made him duke of Valentinois (Valence), and married (1499) Charlotte d'Albret, a sister of the king of Navarre. The French having overrun Italy (see Italian Wars), Cesare, with his father's encouragement, subdued (1499–1500) the cities of the Romagna one by one. Made duke of Romagna (1501) by the pope, Cesare also seized (1502) Piombino, Elba, Camerino, and the duchy of Urbino, and he crowned his achievements by artfully luring his chief enemies to the castle of Senigallia, where he had some of them strangled. By killing his enemies, packing the college of cardinals, pushing his conquests as fast as possible, and buying the loyalty of the Roman gentry, he had hoped to make his position independent of the papacy, or at least to insure that the election of any future pope would be to his liking. But before his schemes could be realized, Cesare was struck in 1503 by the same poison (or illness) that suddenly killed his father. Cesare recovered; however, his political power had suffered a fatal blow. Pius III, after a short reign, was succeeded by Julius II, an implacable enemy of Cesare Borgia. Louis XII then turned against him. Julius demanded the immediate return of what territory remained to Cesare and had him temporarily arrested. Returning to Naples, Cesare was soon arrested by the Spanish governor there as the result of collusion between Julius II and the Spanish rulers, Ferdinand and Isabella. Sent to prison in Spain, he escaped and finally found refuge (1506) at the court of the king of Navarre. He died fighting for him at Viana. His former possessions had passed under direct papal rule; thus, Cesare must be regarded as instrumental in the consolidation of the Papal States, even if that was not his purpose. Cesare has long been considered the model of the Renaissance prince, the prototype of Niccolò Machiavelli's Prince—intelligent, cruel, treacherous, and ruthlessly opportunistic.

See biographies by M. Mallett, The Borgias (1969) and E. R. Chamberlain, Fall of the House of Borgia (1989).

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Borgia, Cesare

Borgia, Cesare (1475–1507) Italian general and political figure, brother of Lucrezia Borgia. He was made a cardinal (1493) by his father, Pope Alexander VI, but forsook the Church to embark on a military campaign (1498–1503) to establish his dominion in central Italy. His ruthless campaigns lend credence to the theory that he was the model for Machiavelli's The Prince. His political fortunes collapsed with Alexander's death (1503). Imprisoned by Pope Julius II, he escaped to Spain, where he was killed in battle.

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